


Grey

by FreckledSkittles



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Multi, Polyamory, Romance, Sad, Sibling Love, Unrequited Love, aka don't read if you're not caught up on the manga, and not the incest kind, lmao same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:11:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5945008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledSkittles/pseuds/FreckledSkittles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say when one finds their soulmate, they will see them in color against a greyed-out world. Sometimes, when there is hope for a long life, the entire world will fill with color, blues and greens and yellows filling into every space. For the most part, given the fact society is closed-off by fifty-meter walls, almost everyone finds their soulmate.</p><p>How six individuals deal with the color that fills their world, and how they try to escape from the edges of gray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grey

**Author's Note:**

> So here's a soulmates AU that no one asked for. I don't know why it got super angsty. It just happened. Proceed at your risk.
> 
> Also I apologize in advance for not knowing what is the proper way to spell gray/grey.

They say when one finds their soulmate, they will see them in color against a greyed-out world. Sometimes, when there is hope for a long life, the entire world will fill with color, blues and greens and yellows filling into every space. For the most part, given the fact society is closed-off by fifty-meter walls, almost everyone finds their soulmate.

Eren figures out the identity of his soulmate in the most unfortunate of circumstances. Then again, not everything surrounding _him_  was because they were in a fortunate situation, especially since he is chained to the wall, forced to sit and stare at eyes that are too likened to steel to be real. He would have never thought the man he had admired since his name appeared on citizens’ lips that Captain Levi would be his soulmate.

He is acknowledged with a thin pull of his lips—a _grimace_ , of all things—that Eren almost doesn’t understand. Levi should be much more happier, even if he is traditionally stoic. But when he looks over at the higher-ranked officer, Commander Erwin, just a few feet away, he understands the situation he has landed in. _Levi is Erwin’s soulmate._  Levi has two souls pining for him, but only he knows whose colors he sees.

When Eren’s freedom is given to him, after a not-too-welcomed lesson from Levi, and he is put in the hands of the Scouts, it is not any easier. Levi never allows him the chance to figure out who his soulmate is. At first, he pushes it aside, lets Levi slip through his fingers only to flicker in and out. But it cannot last forever, and his patience wears thin. Maybe it’s from seeing how his fellow teammates in Levi’s squad react to one another: how Petra and Auruo whisper too close for comfort and shove one another with playful sparks in their eyes, or how Eld and Gunther share brushes against a shoulder as they pass or small smiles from bowed heads. He wants that happiness, that unmatched glee when he sees his soulmate in all his color, and to know he is being viewed in the same spiral of colors and is admired for it.

“Eat your breakfast, Eren. It’s going to be a long day.”

“Levi.” Eren steps in front of him, determination flashing in his eyes as he steadies himself. “Who is it?”

Levi stares up at him, and although he can’t place it, Eren can see that he struggles to reveal what he knows. Maybe he will never choose, because the thought of breaking either of them hurts him. To leave them both unsatisfied with the truth is better than to break the heart of either one.

Eren is afraid that Levi will never respond—or, even worse, he will be lost to him forever. The fear only spikes when he feels the tremble in Eld’s hand pulling him away from Gunther’s hanging corpse, or when he hears the pain in Auruo’s voice when he yells for Petra to get to safety, or when he realizes all four are _gone_  and there are more secrets being discovered than he cares for. Friendships he once believed in are heart-shattering lies; identities of individuals fill his lungs; his role in bringing justice to humanity is more important than ever.

Maybe it is best that Levi’s soulmate remains a secret when there’s so much work to do.

x-x-x

Mikasa knows that a soulmate does not always mean a romantic interest. She is aware of this more than anyone.

Her world is first filled with color when he cuts her binds free and their fingers brush together. When she turns to look at him, teal eyes peeking behind brunet bangs, skin a smooth caramel, she can’t help but smile at him, as faint and weak as it may be. He doesn’t react, simply checks on her and makes sure she’s alright to stand. Her heart pangs.

When the third thug tries to choke him, and the color of her world starts to flicker, it is only when she defeats their opponent that she discovers what it all means.

She has evolved to become a strong presence by his side, one that can battle any individual who decides that they can match her. To her name, she has defeated Titans on her own, fought alongside her teammates, defended and assisted them. She came out on top as the strongest in her graduating class. And yet her focus remained on Eren, ever constant and ever present. And when he discovers his soulmate, even though she has known of a softer soul who looked up at him just as much, and she holds her own disapproval for Humanity’s ~~Shortest~~ Strongest, Mikasa supports her brother in who he matches with. She loves him for everything he is and has become, and she will not stop supporting him.

“You’re my brother,” she tells him before the 57th Expedition begins. “I’m always going to look out for you.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, but she knows he’s aware—and thankful—for her, even when he fails to admit it.

x-x-x

Armin chokes on his discovery, hands biting into palms, eyes averted with disappointment when no one’s looking. How could he be so foolish?

When Eren gushes about his soulmate being Levi, Armin tries to listen as best he can, but he eventually tunes it out, letting Mikasa pick up his slack. Ever since he first sat at a riverbank and read to him, then a stranger, about the wonders of the world outside the walls, he has kept his secret kept away. Eren never reacted to him the way he wished. So he deems it inappropriate to reveal how he feels.

However, his actions catch up with him, however, and he is founded out for being too obvious and revealing. And eventually, he has too many people breathing down his neck: Sasha and Connie, in equal amounts of enthusiasm, chant for him to do it; Reiner, with a pat on the back when the pat was between friends, tries to assure him that nothing can go wrong unless he wishes for it; Mikasa, at the very least, decides to comfort instead of push him. But Jean’s reaction is the most startling of all, and what spurs the confession.

“If you don’t tell him,” he says, “then you’ll have to accept the fact that one of you is going to die and he will never know you care about him.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Armin fires back, frustrated and yet also embarrassed that Jean—of all people—is telling him this. “He’s my best friend.”

“Marco was mine, and look where that got us.”

It is enough to motivate him, but it still takes his limp body pinned between two slabs of rubble for Armin to say it out loud.

“People are relying on you, Eren. I need you to do this more than ever. Push your friendship aside, don’t let it clog your head.” He leans in close, the tips of his brushing against the crusted blood on his temple. “I’ve had to do it for you for _years_. You can’t let us down now.”

Eren hears it, because he opens his eyes a crack, and the teal he has fallen in love with time and time again tell him how sorry he is that they had to settle for a friendship. Because if they were to be together, he would take away Eren’s chances of ever looking at color again. And Armin loves him too much to do that.

x-x-x

Jean struggles with knowledge about his soulmate for a long time before he accepts it.

Maybe it’s because he stands right next to them when Shadis first meets them, and their shoulders keep on brushing together. The idiot—he learns his name is Marco, and it’s equally as dumb—won’t stop smiling. Sometimes, his eyes—they look like hazelnut—will wander over at him, and Jean can see in the warm depths that he knows who he is. He can see the colors he wears, and he’s actually _happy_  about it. _What a loser._  And when they’re getting settled in their bunks for their first night, Jean discovers he won’t stop _talking_.

“You want to join the Military Police, right?”

Jean looks up at him, ignoring how attractive he may look to answer him. “Yeah. But not for some goodie-two-shoe reason like you.”

Marco only laughs. He doesn’t seem offended, maybe because it’s his soulmate and _he can’t be your soulmate. **This** guy, of **all** people._  “Yeah, because joining so you can leech off the benefits is any better.”

“What the _fuck_  is that supposed to mean?”

As they banter back and forth, one teasing with affection and the other growling with frustration, and as the days go by, Jean tells himself that he is not in love with him. He only sees color because Marco is a friend, a good one at that, someone he can talk to and confide in about his issues. And for a while, he is. Marco is the closest friend he’s got.

A year later, when the rain is coming down hard and their boots are logged with mud and water, and their hoods provide enough cover for them to kiss and taste, Jean stops telling himself that, and he allows himself to love.

They have to hide it, because there are Titans that have to be slain, and they have to focus on that. It is agreed that they will have more time in the Interior to be more open. For now, they enjoy sliding underneath the covers at night to kiss and feel his body, to whisper their plans for the future. During the day, they still project their strong friendship, because they only expanded on their foundation, but slip in a peck on the cheek or a touch to his lower back that leave both blushing and laughing like children.

When he discovers Marco’s body, in half and gaunt and left on his own, drained of the beauty in color and life that it had once contained, Jean wishes he could go back and take every chance he got to see the light his smile brought and the eyes that twinkled with adoration.

x-x-x

Bertolt has two, both his best friends and both with two as well. It is the three of them against everyone, just as it always has been.

When he looks back on it, he realizes he never thought about how they never differed from their states, platonic or romantic. Reiner was always affectionate, nuzzling against them or praising them in whispers and kisses. Annie was a stern reminder that brought them back to the real world, but always left a satisfactory peck that sated them for the time being. Bertolt was theirs to hold onto when they needed comfort from a rough day, a reminder of the love they hold for each other. They are still the enemy, three colors against a greyed world. Together, they hold onto one another to anchor themselves down and to remind themselves of their roles.

The more time they spend hiding, the more they realize how hard it is to keep up the front they have created—Reiner especially. He slips in and out of their grasp, dueling between the friendships he has created and the colors that appear out of the corner of his eye. He is a natural extrovert; if he keeps to two people for two long, he’ll become snappy and unpleasant. It gets to be too much when he stops talking, stops kissing, and altogether seems to stop caring.

“Remember who you see,” Annie scolds him one night in the mess hall. No one else has joined them, yet.

“What are you talking about?” Reiner asks, but Bertolt cuts him off.

“We’re the only colors you have,” he states firmly. He is not supposed to be the assertive one, but he has no other choice. “You’re forgetting the two people who matter most.”

Reiner frowns, more in offense than irritation. “So…what, I just have to talk to you two now? No one else?”

“I’m leaving soon for the interior,” Annie says, and there’s a tremor to her voice no one else will hear, a tremble that reveals the fright inside her. “Bertolt will risk everything again to help you out with your half. You have to be ready to take them down.”

It is three against the world, the greyed-out faces of the people they pass whom they have become friendly with. If anyone gets in the way—just as Marco had done—or if anyone finds out—when Armin soon deciphers the truth—they will have to stand by one another.

Bertolt adores his partners. He would do anything to ensure their safety and wellbeing. If that involves taking down the rest of the world for two people, then so be it.

x-x-x

No one thinks anything of Sasha and Connie, because they are everything no one expects. They are loud and disruptive, they eat too much, and they provide more distractions to their fellow trainees than what is welcomed or allowed. But they are expected to provide laughs, to withdraw sighs, to lower expectations of professionalism from developing.

The rumor on Sasha passing gas in the mess hall, tied in with Connie’s ability to let things fly over his head, are not a surprise. Missing the Titans they were assigned when their fellow trainees were running low on gas was something “only they could do.” But when she saves a child from being shot, and when his village, along with his family, are destroyed in one fatal swoop, it is finally realized how they take care of one another.

They provide laughs, as if for nourishment, as a distraction from real life, something to make the pain a little more bearable. They don’t hold hands, or kiss, or whisper “I love you”s when everyone else has gone to sleep. It is when the other is faced with reality, confronted by an issue they cannot laugh past, that their compatibility is revealed. That is when Sasha guides him to her shoulder, when Connie squeezes her hand, when their heads bow and their height is evened out momentarily to steal a quick kiss.

And for that, it is only right they are soulmates.

x-x-x

Historia waits.

She has seen grey for so long, she wonders about the possibility of ever being able to see colors again. She cannot feel the death of her partner, and she does not want to believe such a thing. It is too painful to imagine. After seeing Armin’s struggle, and Jean’s suffering, and Eren’s dilemma, she would rather imagine that the grays are still temporary for when Ymir returns.

It’s foolish, she knows, to keep on living like she will return when she is convinced that she won’t. But it keeps her happy, and it keeps her alive, and there’s so much for her to do. After all, she will live for herself, she must, and she will keep the melody of colors that she remembers in her heart. There is always an open bed for her, an extra plate, an open hand to entangle with. Living for herself does not mean she is forbidden from waiting.

Sometimes, when the day is long, after the children she cares for are asleep, Historia walks out to the field and stares up at the stars. If she imagines it enough, she can feel Ymir pressed against her back, arms raveled around her waist, fingers tracing patterns on her stomach, lips pecking her cheek and neck and everything she can reach. She can pretend that Ymir is still around, and Ymir is with her, and Ymir is safe. It’s all she want.

In the end, it is all grey.


End file.
